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You are here: Home / News / ERPD Officers, City Facing Excessive Use of Force Lawsuit

ERPD Officers, City Facing Excessive Use of Force Lawsuit

January 4, 2023 By Dick Cook 0 Comments

The City of East Ridge and three police officers are the defendants in another lawsuit alleging excessive use of force.

Attorney Robin Flores filed the suit on behalf of Johnathan William Ellish in Hamilton County Circuit Court on December 30. The plaintiff seeks $750,000 from the City and Officers James Davis, Samuel Roistacher and former Officer Anna Simmons. The lawsuit asserts the city “created an atmosphere within the department that such misconduct is condoned and ratified by the city.”

The basis for the lawsuit is an October arrest of Ellish after he refused treatment at Parkridge East hospital for making suicidal threats to himself. Ellish left against the wishes of doctors.

According to the lawsuit, as Ellish was attempting to walk home from the hospital in the early morning hours of October 3, he was stopped by the three officers on Spring Creek Road near the main entrance to the facility. 

The suit claims Officers Davis and Simmons slammed Ellish into a bed of rocks, rolled him over and ground the left side of the man’s face into jagged edges of rocks, partially tearing Ellish’s left nostril from his nose.

“The sudden attack upon plaintiff without warning by the individual defendants, after only about one minute and seven seconds of communication with plaintiff was an unnecessary escalation of force when the only reason why these defendants detained plaintiff was that he walked away from a medical facility where he refused treatment,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit states that Ellish required sutures to his broken nose to reattach his nostril, and severe bruising and abrasions. 

East Ridge City Manager Scott Miller said the city is currently defending four lawsuits regarding the East Ridge Police Department.

Filed Under: FEATURED STORY, News, SLIDER

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.


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